Monday, May 27, 2013

How a Long Talk Found Sam His Future

When Samuel W. Bean, junior, graduated from Alameda High School in 1940, he was like many American
high school students: unsure of what the future might hold for him. War was
brewing in Europe—though that seemed so far removed from teenaged life in
California—and Winston Churchill, who meant business, had just become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the face of Germany’s westward advances.

It was nearly a year and a half before Sam’s country would
become embroiled in the war, and even though his younger brother eventually
enlisted in the Marine Corps, Sam didn’t head in that direction.

Cities have always
bothered me—I feel kind of hemmed in, so when I got out of high school, I went
on the horse trail. I worked as a handler and eventually became an assistant
trainer on the harness horse circuit.

Since Sam’s family lived in Alameda, it seemed a reasonable route for him
to seek employment at stables up in the Oakland Hills, east of the city. High
above the bay with a vista that surely brought Sam that sense of not being “hemmed
in,” the hills were nevertheless home to a number of places offering city
dwellers a quick escape into the quiet serenity of nature.

One of those places was an equestrian center called Skyline
Ranch. Built for retired food merchant Stanley Cosca in 1949, the business is
still in operation at the same location on Redwood Road as it was when Sam
worked there as a horse trainer.

It was at that point that serendipity intervened in Sam’s
career path. Evidently, one of the Ice
Follies namesake principals, Oscar Johnson, had been seeking a solution for
one of the problems with that year’s scheduled acts. As Sam explained in the Tribune article,

they were having
trouble with a pony that had been trained to draw a celluloid carriage containing
the Scotvold Twins for some flash act in the show. The trouble was the Texas fellow who did the
“training” didn’t do it. The pony, who looked like a shrunken Palomino, just
wasn’t doing his job.

Somehow or other Oscar
Johnson heard that I’d had some success with show horses so he gave me a ring.
I went over to see the pony and we had some long talks. There wasn’t anything
wrong with him except that he hadn’t got the original idea. We palled around
together for a couple of days and presently he was performing his chores right
pretty.

That “long talk”—Sam’s philosophy of animal training—must
have been just the right fit for the challenge. As Sam explained it in the Tribune,

When you’re working
with what people generally call a dumb animal, you first have to take into
consideration that he isn’t as dumb as you think, because if he were left to
his own devices he’d be able to live off the soil and there’s not many of us
humans who could turn that trick.

With his unique, gentle approach, Sam Bean seemed to work
miracles with the show animals. At least, as far as Oscar Johnson was
concerned, Sam filled the bill for the Ice
Follies. And yet, he seemed so humble about it all. About his big break
into the “show biz” world, Sam put it this way:

I stayed on with the
show as a sort of chambermaid to this pony and the first thing I knew I was
listed on the payroll as an “animal specialist.” It seemed rather funny at the
time but...I guess I really qualify for the title.

Sam saw his animal charges not so much as animals, but more
like “so many individuals to be cherished and, if necessary, to be argued with.”
To him, his work in animal training was “nothing more than a matter of
understanding and patience.”

About Me

It is my contention that, after a lifetime, one of the greatest needs people have is to be remembered. They want to know: have I made a difference?
I write because I can't keep for myself the gifts others have entrusted to me. Through what I've already been given--though not forgetting those to whom I must pass this along--from family I receive my heritage; through family I leave a legacy. With family I weave a tapestry. These are my strands.